Archive for 2007

Friday, December 28, 2007

‘Coworker #1: So what’ve you been up to?
Coworker #2: The usual. Just whacked off.
Coworker #1: Dude, you’re on speakerphone. [..]

Tourist: Is that train going to 18th street?
New Yorker: Yes.
Doors close.
New Yorker: But you’re not. [..]

Cashier: What will it be?
Customer: Large bucket, large fries, four Diet Cokes.
Cashier: Is this for here or to go?
Customer: Does it look like I can eat all that here?
Cashier: Chill, bitch… I don’t know your life! [..]‘

‘A man being held in a Dutch police cell on suspicion of growing cannabis got an unintended treat in his lunch — a piece of hashish-laced cake, a spokesman said Thursday.

“It was an accident,” said Alwin Don, police spokesman in the southern province of Zeeland.

The hash cake had earlier been seized by police in an unrelated investigation and stored in a refrigerator — close to lunch packets served to suspects being held in cells at the police station in Goes, 110 miles south of Amsterdam.

“Clearly it looked a lot like the other lunch packets,” Don said of the hash cake, which was served with a cup of coffee on Sunday.

“Officers returned to the cell a half hour later and the suspect told them: ‘I think you’ve given me something you weren’t supposed to,’” Don said.’

‘A woman stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife following an argument that began when she accused him of opening a Christmas present early, authorities said Friday.

Misty Johnson, 34, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and battery, a felony, and misdemeanor domestic battery. Her husband, Shawn Fay Johnson, 34, was treated at a hospital for a wound to the chest, police said. [..]

Authorities said Shawn Johnson called 911 just before 1 a.m. Wednesday to report that his wife had stabbed him. He told police that his wife started arguing with him over his opening a Christmas present, according to court records.

As the argument escalated, Misty Johnson accused her husband of having an affair, authorities said. Police found a marriage license in the couple’s apartment stating they were married in late September.

Police Detective David Thompson said he didn’t know what the present was, or if it was intended for the husband.’

‘A recent study has found that an older, commonly prescribed bipolar drug — lithium — can significant increase the lifespan of a certain type of worm. Researchers at the Buck Institute said nematode worms treated with lithium showed a 46 percent increase in lifespan.

It is not yet known whether people taking lithium might also benefit in a similar manner with an increased lifespan.

In the study, scientists discovered the worms’ longevity increased when the lithium reduced the activity of a gene that modulates the basic structure of chromosomes.

“Understanding the genetic impact of lithium may allow us to engineer a therapy that has the same lifespan extending benefits,” said Gordon Lithgow, the lead researcher in the study. “One of the larger questions is whether the lifespan extending benefits of the drug are directly related to the fact that lithium protects neurons.”‘

‘I was recently talking with a colleague who was a fellow theoretical physics graduate student at Princeton University back in the early 1980s. He had been thinking about an obscure academic physics journal he would occasionally skim in the library during those years. This journal was filled with bizarre extra-dimensional models of particles and forces, esoteric ideas about cosmology, and a slew of highly speculative theorising, with little in common other than a lack of any solid evidence for a connection with reality.

“You know,” he said, “at the time I thought these things were a joke, but now when I look at mainstream physics papers, they remind me a lot of what was in that journal.”

Why is it that central parts of mainstream physics have started to take on aspects that used to characterise the outer fringes of the subject? At the very centre of the physics establishment, things have been getting more and more peculiar.’

’44-year-old man presented to his local emergency department wearing a baseball cap and complaining of headaches that had progressively worsened over the preceding 11 weeks. After we provided generous analgesia and performed simple investigations that failed to identify a diagnosis, the patient removed his cap to reveal an assortment of metallic objects embedded in his scalp. Plain radiographs showed 11 nails penetrating into his brain. A detailed history revealed a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, and the patient confirmed that he had hammered a nail into his head each week for the past 11 weeks to rid him of evil. The nails were removed with the patient under general anesthesia, and he made an uncomplicated recovery with no neurological deficits.’

‘A cat piano or Katzenklavier (German) is a hypothetical musical instrument consisting of a line of cats fixed in place with their tails stretched out underneath a keyboard. Nails would be placed under the keys, causing the cats to cry out in pain when a key was pressed. The cats would be arranged according to the natural tone of their voices.

The instrument was described by German physician Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813) for the purpose of treating patients who had lost the ability to focus their attention. Reil believed that if they were forced to see and listen to this instrument, it would inevitably capture their attention and they would be cured (Richards, 1998).’

Friday, December 21, 2007

‘Two teenagers believed to be imitating the Mortal Kombat video game have been arrested and charged in the death of a 7-year- old Johnstown girl – a sister of one of the suspects. [..]

They began wrestling and enacting a game of Mortal Kombat, court affidavits say. Zoe lost consciousness after being hit, kicked and body-slammed to the floor. [..]

A witness quoted in an affidavit said Roberts told her he had kicked the girl and that his hands were “lethal weapons.”

The witness said Roberts performed a back kick and the girl didn’t get up. He said he and Trujillo “cracked an egg in her mouth . . . in an attempt to see if she was messing around with them” by faking unconsciousness.

The witness said she asked Roberts whether Zoe had asked them to stop. “Yeah, she told me to stop,” he said. Asked why he didn’t stop, he said, “I don’t know; I was drunk.”‘

‘It’s not makeup or paint that makes Paul Karason’s skin a bluish color.

The 57-year-old started making the transition from fair skin and freckles to what he looks like today 14 years ago.

“The change was so gradual that I didn’t perceive it and for people around me, likewise,” Karason said. “It was just so gradual that no one really noticed. It wasn’t until a friend that I hadn’t seen in several months came by my parents’ place to see me and he asked me ‘what did you do?’” [..]

Karason moved to Madera, California about six months ago after living in Oregon. He said too many people in Oregon were unkind to him and he hopes Californians will be different. [..]

Karason said he has not sought medical attention for the condition and he is prepared to live with it for the rest of his life.’

Thursday, December 20, 2007

‘Your spirit animal is the Grizzly Bear. No other spirit animal matches it’s size and strength. This creature is among the noblest and most respectable, and you are truly fortunate. It is both fearsome and awesome to behold. It will serve you well, and shows that you have a deeper understanding than most. It is quite rare indeed to have a Grizzly as a spirit animal!’

‘A new species of giant rat has been discovered in a remote region of New Guinea by a team of totally freaked-out zoologists.

The scientists from Conservation International spotted the ‘absolutely mental thing’ during a five-day trek through the hazardous Foja mountains.

Expedition leader Professor Wayne Hayes said: “I was filling my water bottle when I saw this huge fucking thing and I shouted to my mate Dave, I said, ‘Dave, look at the size of that fucker!’ and Dave was like, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s a fucking monster!

“I shouted over to Stevie and Ben, I said, ‘get a look at this bastard’ and they’re like ‘no way, man, that’s mental’ – they were totally freaking out.”‘

‘The UK, the United States and Canada are facing growing fears over a drug-resistant ‘superbug’ being brought back by wounded soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq that threatens to contaminate civilian hospitals.

The intensified concern comes amid sharply rising infection rates in the US and fresh worries in Canada that the bug could be imported into its civilian healthcare system. Military health officials who have studied the bacterium in Afghanistan believe the infection of wounded British soldiers in field hospitals there is probably inevitable. [..]

The bacterium, Acinetobacter baumannii, first emerged as a ‘mystery infection’ afflicting US service personnel returning from the war in Iraq in 2003-04. It was described by a scientific journal specialising in hospital epidemiology as the ‘most important emerging hospital-acquired pathogen worldwide’. The journal added that it was potentially a ‘major threat to public health’ due to its ability to mutate rapidly and develop a resistance to all known drugs.’

‘A convicted criminal has moved in with a married couple against their wishes after giving their address in court as his home.

Shane Sims, 19, has spent the last few days living with Brenda and Robert Cole after he was sentenced to a week’s curfew for breaching a supervision order.

But the couple claim the first they knew about it was when Sims, a friend of their daughter, moved in on Thursday – followed by security contractors who put a box in a bedroom to monitor his movements with an ankle tag.

Mrs Cole, 47, said: ‘It’s turned our lives upside down. He’s taken over the whole place. He sprawls across the sofa and he’s always in the bathroom when you need it. It’s an absolute disgrace. They’ve let a criminal come into our home and there is nothing we can do about it.”

The father’s a no nonsense military looking kind of guy. Seated across from him in the usual soccer mom getup is his wife. Next to her, facing me, a mass of black curls and inexpertly applied makeup, is her teenage daughter. She smiles at me toothily.

The other daughter sits facing away from me – face obscured by a hanging mane of heavy black hair. Her bejeweled fingers tap impatiently on the table top. Probably embarrassed to be seen eating out with her parents.

‘In a surprising refutation of the conventional wisdom on opinion entitlement, a study conducted by the University of Chicago’s School for Behavioral Science concluded that more than one-third of the U.S. population is neither entitled nor qualified to have opinions.

“On topics from evolution to the environment to gay marriage to immigration reform, we found that many of the opinions expressed were so off-base and ill-informed that they actually hurt society by being voiced,” said chief researcher Professor Mark Fultz, who based the findings on hundreds of telephone, office, and dinner-party conversations compiled over a three-year period. “While people have long asserted that it takes all kinds, our research shows that American society currently has a drastic oversupply of the kinds who don’t have any good or worthwhile thoughts whatsoever. We could actually do just fine without them.”‘